Maybe I can answer a few questions about the Voter Lists. The EC maintains voter lists sorted by last name, first name, first and last name, email address, state, region, position. We have to be consistent, so if that's the order in which you receive a list to update, it's because we have to sort them like that. Names may be slightly different, but there's a good reason for that, also. There's Jane Doe, Janie Doe, and Janey Doe. The EC has the task of determining whether these three names are one person, two persons, or three persons. Sometimes it's not easy, especially if Ms. Doe uses different email address for each state/county. A similar situation occurs with hyphenated surnames. Susie Jones-Smith may reach us as: Smith, Susie Jones (incorrect) Jones, Susie (incorrect) Smith, Susie (incorrect) Jones-Smith, Susie (correct) Again, the EC has to determine if they are all the same person or not. Once we make a determination, we try to be consistent in presentation so we won't send out two or more passwords to the same person. The name is one of the identifying markers the software uses. Hope this helps, Ellen At 11:12 PM 4/2/2003 -0500, you wrote: >At 08:54 PM 04/02/2003 -0500, you wrote: >>Wouldn't it be great if we could have a password-protected up-load page????? >>That way we could submit timely changes, without regard to a time-line. >>Why should we NOT be working towards real-time reports???? >>And, for goodness sake, PLEASE settle on a standard format!!! > >I agree with the last line of this especially. My previous EC contact >wanted the lists in an Excel spreadsheet. This was not a problem for me >except that this person took my name column, split the names into two >columns and then sorted on given name. I had the name column as Surname, >Given name as in Smith, Mary. Where it really became tough is if they >knew or decided to use a different given name or a nickname than what I >knew the CC as. Now my present EC contact does not have Excel and a >"copy" from Excel and a "paste" into Eudora results in a weird look in my >email as I prefer not to use the Microsoft viewer option in Eudora Pro. > >Another problem for me, I have lost more CCs because they get tired of so >many forwarded messages regarding elections, bylaws changes, politics and >policy changes that they start filtering messages from the state list and >then fail to respond when I really need them to. It should not be >necessary to write private notes to each CC in a state to confirm an >address as good and make sure the person sees a message. Many believe it >is absolutely necessary that their messages be forwarded to every CC and >most CCs prefer not be bothered with the politics. They want to do the >best they can for their county and not be interrupted by unimportant items. > >Les Shockey